may be safely contended, that no language can be constructed that will teach it. If this language does not express endless duration, then there is no language in the Bible that does express it. And if this is not evidence that Christ's government and kingdom shall be eternal, then we have no evidence that anything shall be eternal. Doubts arise, concerning the eternal happiness of believers-the redeemed children of God, and there is no possibility of allaying them, for the very language used to describe their happiness, is used to describe the duration of Christ's kingdom and government, and if the language does not teach that he is to sit upon the throne of his father David, and reign over his kingdom yet to be upon earth for ever, neither does it teach that the blessedness of those whom he died to redeem shall be eternal. Since the same language is used to express the duration of Christ's kingdom and reign upon earth, and the duration of the happiness of the redeemed, they stand or fall together.

Other passages teaching the perpetuity of Christ's kingdom and reign upon earth might be cited, but one more shall suffice, Rev. xi. 15: when "the seventh angel sounded, John heard great voices in heaven, saying, 'The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our LORD, and of his CHRIST; and he shall reign for ever and ever.'" Now if those who uttered the voices in heaven knew what they said, and spake the truth; then they do most positively teach that the kingdoms of this world have to become the kingdoms

of Jesus Christ: and that His kingdom established upon the overthrow of these kingdoms shall fill the whole earth; for it is all the kingdoms of the earth that have to give place to His, and that His kingdom which is to overthrow and take the place of all others is to endure eternally and He in his ever enduring kingdom is to reign for ever and ever. All this and nothing less than all this, the voices which John heard in heaven, do teach and most positively affirm. His kingdom once established upon the earth shall never be overthrown, shall never be succeeded by any other. It abides: it remains: it is eternal.

That Christ then, will establish his kingdom upon earth, and reign for ever and ever in that kingdom, is a doctrine, fully, clearly taught in Scripture. When Christ returns to earth, he comes not to remain for a short or long period: to preside over the solemnities of what is called the judgment day, but to abide for ever. When he establishes his kingdom upon earth it is not to flourish in glory for a season, like ancient or present kingdoms, and then like them to be overthrown, pass away and be succeeded by another. It will be established upon an immovable foundation,-upon the principles of eternal truth and righteousness, upon Immanuel's omnipotent sustaining power, upon the inviolable covenant God made with him, "He shall see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied," yea it will be the kingdom of the restitution of all things :-the new heavens and the new earth to abide before the

Lord for ever, and consequently it shall stand for ever ; it shall never be destroyed."

The most mighty and enduring kingdoms or monarchies upon earth have had their rise, glory, decline and fall. Where is now mighty and far renowned Babylon, with her encircling walls seventy-five feet broad, and three hundred high, with her strong brazen gates and the tower of Jupiter's temple lifting its head nigh seven hundred feet into the clouds, once the glory and sovereign of the world, with her proud boasting Nebuchadnezzar upon the throne, who laid Jerusalem desolate, and led God's people captive at his will? Alas! alas! her beauty, glory, strength,-all have perished and passed away like a vision of the night! Its rock-like fortress, its cloud-capt towers, its gold furnished palaces, where the proud and mighty ones of earth revelled, have all been swept by the besom of destruction, and its strength and magnificence consigned to the dust and from amidst its ruins where the owl and satyr undisturbed for centuries have played, men are now with laborious industry and thrilling interest digging its ornamental and inscribed stones from the hoary rubbish of antiquity. What have become of the far spreading Persian and Grecian kingdoms which seemed to hold in their strength everlasting endurance? They too, mighty and gigantic, ruling over many lands, have numbered their few days, and passed away like the morning cloud, and their brief existence, and utter desolation, are chronicled only on

the page of history. And Rome, "Eternal Rome," "the seven hilled city," once the undisputed mistress of the world, all conquering Rome, that trode with victorious feet over many lands, and for centuries walked in triumph over every dynasty against which she turned her ever victorious arms? What, what has become of that mighty city and empire? Do they stand, do they flourish in unsubdued power and in unfaded beauty still? Ah! no: her strength is gone, her arms are broken, her warrior hosts slain, her sceptre and terror-girt crown in the dust. The blasts of desolation have swept over her, and under them she has crumbled into ruins, and been broken into pieces. All that now remains of her are only the shattered fragments; the enfeebled kingdoms under the scripture designation of the ten toes. And they too, are waiting the rapidly approaching hour of their destruction. The commotions have begun which will become more terrible; the tumults of the nations which will become more wild, frantic, and convulsive, till the coming of the Son of man-till the stone cut out of the mountain without hands, smite these, and with its all-crushing influence, they become small as the chaff of the summer thrashing-floors; and when the terrible crushing work is in progress, and the arm of the Lord is made bare, and His mighty sword of vengeance unsheathed, for the destruction-for the utter annihilation of these kingdoms that stand in opposition to him and the establishment of His all pervading, holy kingdom, the fire for

which the heavens and the earth are now reserved will be kindled. These fires will burn, until they have. burnt up the works of men, and refined this earth to that purity to which it is the will of God it should be wrought, and then it will emerge from its windingsheet of flame, and from its shroud of smoke a new creation destined to roll in its orbit for ever. The new earth as after the flood, will then spread its holy bosom beautiful in the eye of God as in the morning of creation, to the genial rays of the sun: its vales enriched with greater fertility and covered with more abundant herbage and flowers; its mountains clad in more abundant foliage, and it prepared another Eden, for the habitation of the sons of men-the redeemed sons of God, and the Son of God as the lord and king of all crowned with glory and honour at its head, upon this new creation He will establish a kingdom which shall never be moved-never destroyed :—whose power shall never be subdued by the usurping foe, whose might and stability no lapse of years shall shake, but which shall endure in unclouded glory and undiminished strength for ever and ever. That is the kingdom of which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began-the kingdom which the God of heaven, the father of the everlasting age, shall set up of which "there shall be no end "which shall never be destroyed."

This everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, in which He will personally appear, will